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I was awoken by our research assistant to inform me that three hook and line fishers were trying to fish inside the marine protected area in Handumon (Getafe, Bohol). They were fishing near the boundary, but from time to time would encroach inside. I am pretty familiar with this strategy, as fishers, once approached by enforcement officers, would claim that they were just carried by water current and have no intention of fishing inside the MPA. But in fact they wanted to be carried away, hoping to catch fish in the more abundant inside than the “cemetery” outside the marine protected area (I call it cemetery as during our fish visual census, the immediate outside of the Handumon MPA are laden with dynamite-blasted blocks of dead corals with few fishes giving the impression of walking in a real cemetery).

And so we readied our boat, and asked our newly hired community organizer to join with us. Because it was low tide then, it took some time for us to take the boat. By the time we are floating and ready, the 3 fishers were already outside the MPA area. But we still continued on and talked to the fishers to inform them that we were monitoring them over binocular and have indeed seen them fishing inside. Of course, they denied, and having no evidence (as they are already outside), I proceeded with explaining to them the rules of the MPA (no fishing, the MPA is also for their future use as an insurance or fish bank). While preparing to go back, far over us near Nasingin are 7 boats of fishers using a prohibited fishing gear in municipal water called Danish trawl (liba-liba). Nasingin was then an island notorious for Danish trawlers fishing rampantly in Getafe waters.

I instructed our research assistant to proceed to the area. As a backdrop to this story, we were not physically prepared to do hard-type of enforcement as we are only warning the three hook and line fishers. I did not bring my tear gas (my protection, for my involvement with fisheries enforcement ever since I was hired in the project) nor anything useful for hard-type of enforcement. All we had is a small kitchen knife used by our boatperson for cutting fishing nets, ropes etc. So there we are, 3 of us (me, our new community organizer (CO) and the research assistant (RA)), unprepared, trying to apprehend 7 boats with 2-3 persons per boat.

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